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Tutoring company tells parents to save their money and 'use AI instead'

142 points · 233 comments · theanonymousone

  1. saadn92 · · focus · HN ↗
    I'm all for saving money where you can, but these models really aren't great for learning because they love giving you answers and it's so easy to get an answer, but the process to get to the answer is how you actually learn. Unless you put guardrails in place to actually learn, I don't think this advice is good.
    1. dumberquestions · · focus · HN ↗
      Students have always had the curriculum and standard study material, it was always possible to study alone, but the teacher mostly provides an interactive gap-bridging layer, and the classroom setting provides some level of obligation, I could be wrong but I don't know why AI can't fulfill the interaction layer part.
      1. dofm · · focus · HN ↗
        This is such a terrible implied indictment of the schools you attended that I feel sad for you.
        1. dumberquestions · · focus · HN ↗
          Some teachers do genuinely make a difference, and maybe that's good enough, but unfortunately there are many more who struggled to add value to the original material, and I don't really think this is a unique experience.
          1. dofm · · focus · HN ↗
            Of all the teachers I have ever had, at school and university, I can think of only three who struggled to add value to the original material. One was in the middle of a nervous breakdown (of a kind that genuinely would not have been out of place in the John Hughes movies of the day, but that contributed to him passing the following summer); the other two were in the middle of significant crises of different forms.

            So that's about 0.75%.

            The rest were either competent, good or amazing.

            (Then again, one of the remainder was internationally famous for being a (self-acknowledged) media whore and while I know he added value it wasn't always to the subject at hand)

            1. dofm · · focus · HN ↗
              2.5% I meant to write there. And I know this because I just found that 2.5% elsewhere that I meant to write 0.75%.

              School is now distant enough for me that I have reached the brain fog age where I cannot be commenting on internet things intermittently while writing documents…

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